Name Norms: A Guide to Casting Your Next Experiment

Abstract

Psychologists often test hypotheses by constructing vignettes depicting people engaging in behavior and displaying characteristics designed to operationalize specific variables. People described in these vignettes are typically given names, but names have a variety of connotations that could lead to unwanted variance between conditions of an experiment and in other ways have implications for the results of a study. An up-to-date source of information to help guide the selection of names would be useful for researchers. Participants from four different regions of the United States rated a large sample of names in terms of perceived age, warmth, and competence. The full set of names is presented, along with some simple demonstration studies concretely illustrating the implications of name choice.